The Samsung group is poised to start a campaign to curb excessive corporate drinking. Forcing employees to drink more as punishment for being late, to finish their glass at once, drinking alcohol out of a large bowl; these are the three bad drinking practices Samsung has pointed out. It is reported that the company, when assessing worker performance, is even planning to disadvantage those who force co-workers to drink or cause a problem because of alcohol. The campaign will be put into practice in all of Samsung’s subsidiaries.

On September 19, a source within Samsung told Toonari Post, “It is impossible for us to become a leading company in the world with a drinking culture like this. Workers at the Samsung group usually believe that they cannot succeed if they are not good at drinking, because drinking with co-workers is usually considered a chance for people to communicate and build social relationships. We are going to get rid of this culture by starting a new campaign. From now on, we will punish people who make problems derived from drinking and negatively influence their co-workers. It doesn’t matter whether he or she is a high-level worker or not.”

Many years ago, many Korean people believed that drinking culture was a residual product of the country’s economic success because workers could communicate and share their ideas and views while drinking together.

However, people are now blaming the Korean drinking culture for aiding to workers’ stress and lowering their willingness to work rather than improve their productivity.

The Samsung official added, “Bad drinking culture has brought Samsung’s workers lots of burdens, making them unable to maintain a balance between work and home. Family members of workers are also a victim of their bad drinking culture.”

In January of next year Samsung plans to educate its workers on how to have good drinking culture and how to get benefits from it. Lectures on topics such as ‘Relationship between drinking and bad health’ and ‘Bad effects of alcohol on the body,’ will be included in its education course.

Samsung expects that the education course will maximize its campaign’s efficacy, because all workers at Samsung should take these courses.

Samsung also plans to offer its workers more opportunities to enjoy other activities such as sports, movies, or plays in order to still be able to lessen their stress while deterring them from drinking.

The 27-year-old Kim, who works for Samsung Electronics, said, “I love and support the Samsung group’s idea. I have been forced to drink by my co-workers before, even though I get easily drunk. I have gotten a lot of stress because of it, and I know there are many people like me at all Samsung’s affiliates. I believe the decision of Samsung will improve workers’ productivity and bring lots of advantages to them.”

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About the author

Tae-jun Kang
Tae-jun Kang graduated from Korea University with a business degree as well as a minor in Russian language and literature. He had worked as a riot police in Korea for 2 years before he started his degree. This gave him an opportunity to focus on the social issues which he overlooked before, and spiked his interest in the field of journalism. In 2011, he worked for Voice of America Seoul News Center for nine months as an intern, building his goal to become an international journalist. You can reach him by sending an email to taejun.kang@toonarimedia.com